Vacuum cleaners are generally supplied with a range of tools for dealing with specific types of cleaning. The tools include a floor tool for general on-the-floor cleaning. The floor tool comprises a main body which engages with a floor surface. The main body has a lower surface comprising a suction opening through which, in use, dirt and dust is drawn into the floor tool from the floor surface.
It is known to provide floor tools for cleaning hard floor surfaces with a skirt of flexible bristles which surrounds the suction opening and which rides along the hard floor surface to space the lower surface of the main body from the floor surface. Recesses or castellations may be provided along the leading and trailing edges of the bristle skirt to allow debris to pass through the bristle skirt and into the main body during forward and reverse strokes of the floor tool during cleaning.
It is also known to provide floor tools having dual cleaning purposes. For example, EP 1 320 317 discloses a floor tool having a suction channel bounded on at least one side by a working edge for engaging with and agitating a carpeted floor surface. Lint pickers on the underside of the tool act as a one-way gate, allowing hair, fluff and other fibrous material to pass under the lint picker when the floor tool is pushed along the floor, but to block the lint when the floor tool is pulled backwards. The repeated forward and backwards action of the floor tool across the floor surface traps the lint and rolls it into a ball which can be captured by the floor tool. The floor tool also comprises a skirt of flexible bristles which surrounds, but is not part of, the underside of the floor tool. The skirt is movable between a deployed position, for use when cleaning hard floors, in which the skirt rides along the hard floor surface and serves to space the working edge from the floor surface, and a retracted position, for use when cleaning carpets, where the working edge is able to contact the floor surface and the skirt is retracted sufficiently not to impede movement of the floor tool across the carpeted surface.
As another example, DE 19933449 describes a floor tool in which the main body is fitted with a bristle skirt and surface polishing elements having a textile polishing surface. A longer polishing element lies in the suction direction behind the suction opening, with two shorter polishing elements being located on either side of the suction opening. The bristle skirt is moveable relative to the main body between deployed and retracted positions. The movement of the bristle skirt is actuated by a user of the floor tool using a switch located on the upper surface of the main body. In its deployed position, for use in removing debris from a hard floor surface, the bristle skirt protrudes downwardly beyond the polishing elements so that the polishing elements are spaced from the floor surface. In its retracted position, for use in polishing the hard floor surface, the bristle skirt is retracted above the polishing elements to enable the polishing elements to engage the floor surface.